Sunday, October 19, 2008

Combative French

Casual is saying "bonjour" to people in the street and ordering in restaurants.

Conversational is actually being able to use verbs to construct complex sentences.

Combative is when you buy The Little Mermaid from Migros Electronics, take it home, put it in the machine to find out for some reason it is defective and even the menu screen doesn't appear, take it back to Migros Electronics only to be told you can't return it because it's already opened and you're able to convince the sales woman that because the store sold you a defective product they owe you another one and you walk away feeling good about the exchange and your kids get to watch The Little Mermaid after all.

I am not yet at the Combative level. And I have a defective Little Mermaid DVD that the sales woman at Migros Electronics insists I can't return.